


Change of Command

by CaffieneKitty



Category: Cabin Pressure
Genre: Gen, Humor, Poor Douglas, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-21
Updated: 2014-12-21
Packaged: 2018-03-02 14:13:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2814905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaffieneKitty/pseuds/CaffieneKitty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The smooth transfer of authority is vital in any organization.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Change of Command

**Author's Note:**

> I was originally trying to do a drabble per episode for Cabin Pressure's advent/run up to the finale but that obviously didn't work out. This was the only one that's done in time to post.

"You'll be Captain now, I suppose," Nigel said, clearing the last of his personal effects from the flight deck locker.

"Certainly looks like it, though I don't know whether the new 'cheap as possible' hire might need a nanny more than a Captain. That last ginger chap Carolyn had in interviewing for First Officer looked all of about twelve years old."

Nigel zipped up his battered and patched flight bag with a stern dip of his eyebrows over rheumy blue eyes. "You be sure to treat Carolyn with respect. She is the owner and God knows with that ex-husband of hers she's had enough disrespect in life, poor girl. And none of your old tricks either."

"I wouldn't dream of it." Douglas refrained from mentioning that referring to Carolyn Knapp-Shappey as a 'girl' probably wasn't terribly respectful. Nigel had never called her that to her face and had never used the term in a negative context, just merely acted as though Caroline was a favourite niece. Nigel's age only being five years older than Carolyn's, it was a bit incongruous.

"That innocent look fools no one, Douglas."

"I'm certain I have no idea what you mean," Douglas said without even the slightest twitch of a sardonic eyebrow as he followed Nigel to the exit door.

"Can't teach a leopard to change his spots, hey what?" Nigel sighed, shook his head with a fond grin and slapped Douglas on the back before descending the stairs. "God help anyone down route from you."

As he locked up and descended GERTI's stairs Douglas watched Nigel cross the tarmac, angling to pass the engineer's shack and the tower on the way to his dilapidated blue Morris Minor.

There was motion at the portakabin; Carolyn stood in the doorway, arms crossed, watching her Captain make his farewells. Douglas walked across the tarmac to stand beside her.

"Sad to see him go," he said by way of greeting, "but one can't argue with a medical restriction."

Carolyn snorted. "One can argue with anything, but no amount of arguing one does is going to change the CAA's rulings to suit one's preferences."

Standing next to Carolyn, Douglas watched in companionable silence as Nigel reappeared from the engineer's shack, followed out by Dave and George intent on shaking his hand farewell. Nigel shook his white-haired head at the height of the tower, and instead waved up at Karl, who waved back down like the Queen Mother. Turning away sadly, Nigel went to his car, got in and after a moment started it, releasing its habitual enormous puff of blue smoke.

 _And now I'm a Captain again._ A long-knotted point of tension inside Douglas began to ease. _No doubt with some bright spark of a First Officer to break in. Some wet-behind-the ears pup to fill in the paperwork and do all the boring bits, leaving me to make the best of what miniscule prestige being Captain of an airline with a single jet that's a footnote of a footnote in the annals of aviational engineering can gather. Until I'm sidelined too, but that's years from now. Years and years._

Douglas and Carolyn watched as the Morris Minor chugged out of the car park, onto the access road and away.

"Well," sniffed Carolyn. "That's that."

Douglas hummed. "It's going to be hard to fill his shoes," he said with deliberate self-deprecation.

"Oh, not that hard I think."

Douglas smiled, enjoying the rare compliment from Carolyn even though he had fished for it himself, and gazed off at GERTI. She sat on the tarmac same as ever, yet seeming somehow more noble now as the plane he would command.

Carolyn cleared her throat and said abruptly, "Your new Captain will be starting on the cargo flight to Amsterdam next week." She turned and went back into the portakabin, shutting the door behind her.

Douglas blinked, then blinked again. "...My new _what!?_ "

-.-.-  
(that's all)


End file.
